Deal Says the USCCB Had to Keep Stupak on Task

From tomorrow's New York Times comes a story by Jodi Kantor about Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI).

It contains the following very interesting tidbit:

Mr. Stupak says he urged the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to toughen its stance on the legislation; representatives from the conference and the National Right to Life Committee did not return calls

The parenthesis are from the original story. Why are they there? Perhaps Kantor did not know what a bombshell this statement from Stupak would be among many Catholics.

It makes you wonder what Stupak thought the USCCB should be tougher about? The abortion issue? Or abortion and other issues as well? And did Stupak mean the USCCB should be tougher behind the scenes or in the public eye?

But if Stupak feels he is hanging tougher than the USCCB then how do you make sense of all those stories about lobbyists from the USCCB keeping Stupak on message?

Certainly the USCCB has studiously avoided a tough public stance, preferring not to risk their internal negotiating position.

I wish Kantor explored Stupak's meaning here -- perhaps Stupak went off the record at this point, and Kantor had to call the USCCB and National Right to Life for comment.

That the USCCB did not return her call is surprising given the prominence of the NYT and the importance of the issue raised by Stupak.

Link to original Inside Catholic...

Catholic Insight Opposes Homosexual Office Seekers: Canada Elections

By Fr. Alphonse de Valk
Issue: November

The main Anglican community in the world continues to distance itself further from orthodox Christianity. During the last 40 years the idea, first of approving priestesses, contrary to the Scriptures and unheard of in the 2000- year history of Christianity, followed immediately by the instalment of female bishops, has created such an abyss between mainstream Anglicans on the one hand and Catholics and Eastern Orthodox on the other that formal theological discussions are no longer possible for the time being, or perhaps forever.

The situation is further aggravated by the Anglican community’s surrender to the western world’s abandonment of Christian morality, first contraception (1930), then abortion (1967), today especially the acceptance of homosexuality as a principle and as a church-approved way of life and agenda. While contraception and abortion remain mostly unheard and unseen as private family matters, homosexuality, in contrast, is loud, provocative, ugly, and eminently destructive of unity. Even the collapse of Canada’s largest Protestant community, the United Church of Canada, in its abandonment of both dogma and morality, seems to have left no impact on Canadians.

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